2016

Welcome to the 7th Annual Lenny Awards for the best new spicy products. Some of these awards are for the best products our review teams encountered and gave the highest ratings for. Most of them are from my encounters from fiery food events, purchased online or perhaps found along the way in many journeys to and fro. The Lenny Award is named after my Father who died of Cancer on this very day back in 2010. Rather than mourn his death, I am here to celebrate his life and how he would help total strangers in need just because he could. I am trying to do the same with the Lenny Award by given something from my heart to an industry and community that I love. The Lenny is given to my favorite new products and there is no other factor involved in my choice. I don’t get a chance to try everything in due time, so some of these products might be older than 2016 when I first got a chance to try them. I have listed the names of the companies below the video that either received a Lenny Award or got an honorable mention. If you do not want to view that spoiler list, go watch the video and enjoy the moment there.

Calling all manufacturers of spicy goods! Do you want your product to be seen by 200,000 chileheads? Does a full page in Chile Pepper to showcase your products sound good? What about being included in Chile Pepper’s renewal notices? An award to prove to your peers and customers just how tasty your product is?If your answer is a resounding YES!, then you need to enter The Chile Pepper Awards competition. And the good news is that there’s still time to meet the deadline of October 21.

This is the 3rd Annual Hop Sauce Festival where the concept is simple, you combine a beer tasting event with a hot sauce festival. You then add in some of the Best Jersey Shore restaurants and live musical acts and throw it right next to the beach and BAM, you got a good time for all that attend. I was at last’s years event after hearing good feedback from some of the vendors who attended the 1st year in 2014. It was a lot of fun, and if you like the idea of beautiful bikinis roaming around a hot sauce event, then you might want to take the drive over to Long Beach Island for this year’s fest.

You can just find out by going to their website, (http://www.theflaveawards.com/) to see what it is all about since I am pretty much copying and pasting their information right here. Well, mostly. The International Flavor Awards, LLC (IFA’s) in conjunction with the creators of the Summer Feast Food & Music Festival are excited to invite you to compete in the “2016 Flave Awards”. More about the Summer Feast below. The Flave Awards are brand spanking new to this industry, so new there is no pictures yet of what they look like with less than a month to go. They mention a glass trophy for all winners and ribbons for 2nd and 3rd place so at least that is something. There are over 50 categories with an introductory cost of only $50/entry, but with 1 free entry if you enter 3 categories at $150 and 2 free entries if you enter 5 categories at $250. That isn’t too bad to compete for something to put on display for customers to know you done right. Now here is the part I think you will like the most, so pay close attention to what you read next:

The NYC Hot Sauce Expo is proud to announce the 2016 Screaming Mi Mi Award winners. With hundreds of entries the winners were selected by blind taste test by New Yorks finest and brightest in the culinary industry. The panel consisted of chefs from FOX, CBS and Food Networks, Food Critics from NYC Newspapers, Bloggers, Magazines, Hot Sauce Retailers, and some of NYC’s Top Chefs. The Screaming Mi Mi Awards have been creating a large industry buzz within the Hot Sauce Community. Past winners have received features on TV, magazines, newspapers creating a profile that has lead for their product distributed by wholesalers and national retail outlets.

The most trending fiery food event on the planet is back and it is this weekend at the Brooklyn Expo Center, as stayed directly above. Brought to you by High River Sauces and the man behind the event, Steve Seabury. The who’s who in hot sauce will be in attendance. Some of the finest artisan crafts men and women will be sampling out their goods while the event itself will unleash a full schedule of entertainment which includes the 2016 Hot Sauce Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony, the annual Screaming Mi Mi Awards Presentation, another Guinness Book Of World Record Carolina Reaper Challenge from Puckerbutt’s very own Smokin’ Ed Currie, the Defcon Deathmatch is back after a one year hiatus, and the only food eating contest that has been a part of the Expo since it’s inception, the Volcanic Peppers & Grimaldi’s Fiery Pizza Challenge presented by yours truly, ILoveItSpicy.com. Yes, that is my baby! A big thanks goes out to Grimaldi’s Pizzeria and Tim Bader, my pizza partner and the man behind the heat who have kept this contest alive these last 4 years. Very excited if the defending champion Wayne Algenio will repeat as champion or will John Andrews return to his 1st year form and take back the pizza trophy. Here is da Champ, Wayne posing with his trophy:

These are the winners’ list from the 2016 Zestfest Fiery Food Challenge last night. I see a lot of friends that I know in the hot sauce world. I would like to congratulate them on seeing their hard work pay off. I am very happy for you all. Super congratulations to Troy Primo of Primo’s Peppers for having the Best Overall Product as seen in the picture above. It looks like he also won a Disc-It! Grill as Fiber Joe has covered in his article in November. Nice Job Troy!Company – Product – Place